St. Louis Lawyer Injured By Parking Lot Package Bomb

A lawyer who lives in an upscale suburb of St. Louis was injured yesterday when he picked up an apparent package bomb left next to his car in its assigned parking spot in the garage of the Clayton, Mo., high-rise.

John Gillis, 69, was bloodied and burned by the blast, which occurred at about 11:15 a.m., but is expected to survive, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He is a senior counsel at Armstrong Teasdale, a 270-attorney international law firm headquartered in St. Louis, where his practice focuses on corporate and securities matters.

Authorities said they don’t know whether Gillis was an intended target of the bomb, which was contained in a package left next to his car. When he picked it up, it went off, the newspaper reports.

“We don’t know who set it there or why it was put there,” Clayton Police Chief Thomas Byrne tells the newspaper. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI are assisting local authorities with their investigation.

The incident was the first of two apparent bomb blasts affecting lawyers within the past 24 hours in a several-state region. This morning, at about 10 a.m., an explosion at a personal injury law firm in Dalton, Ga., caused multiple injuries. It also is being investigated by ATF, and a person of interest reportedly is in custody.